Saturday, October 31, 2015

This is a short Halloween story I had written as part of a two story chapbook I was going to give away digitally, but just haven't had the time to work on. Sadly, its not edited so its in a very raw and primal state as you read it here. But hey, its FREE and it was the best I had to offer because I'm a terrible planner. It, and the other story, were written in a style that I normally don't use, trying to capture that almost 1950's vibe. I don't know if I pulled it off or not. Enjoy!

Gumdrop Eyes

by Guy Medley cute artwork by Jim Boring

Sarah answered the soft rapping at the door, the giggles
beyond bringing forth a smile to her face. Three small children stood upon the
porch under the yellow light, one dressed as a bed sheet ghost, one as a crude
Frankenstein and the third as a vampire or some other such ghoul.

A mousy
voice just above a whisper squeaked from beneath the sheet of the ghost, “trick
or treat,” the sheet trembling not in the slightest as it might have any other
time a warm breath brushed against it.

She
could smell their sweetness; licorice and lemon drops and fresh pulled taffy.
And she could swear it was blue and pink cotton candy tufts that escaped wildly
from beneath caps and hoods and frightful plastic masks, sugary and wispy in
the gentle night breeze.

Sarah
filled their outstretched sacks with handfuls of candy, smiling down at the bizarre
little children. The ghost looked up and beyond its ragged cut eyeholes she
could see purple eyes staring back at her, unblinking like two sugared sapphires.
Like twin gumdrops she thought delightfully.

The
three children ran off toward the next waiting house, their little bodies
making a sticky, syrupy sound as they retreated across the lawn, and Sarah
watched on in fascination and bewilderment and in a little bit of terror as
they went.

“Come
away from there, Sarah,” George called from the living room. “Quit gawking at
those little beggars and come sit down, now. Our program’s about to begin any
second.”

Sarah relaxed
in her chair, looking at but not really seeing the television in front of her.
“Who was it anyway, the Jackson kids?” he asked.

“No.
No, I don’t believe so. I’m not entirely sure who they were. Not at all.”

George
mumbled back, happy enough with the answer and returned his attention once
again to the television.

When
all of the candy had been handed out, Sarah switched off the porch light and
headed up to bed.

A chaos
brought her to the bedroom window where she looked out onto the street below. The
three odd children were being pursued down the street by a pack of children
still adorned in mask and costume. They advanced upon the trio slowly, as if
they were leading a funeral procession through the deserted street. In a
macabre way she supposed that was indeed what they were doing after all.
Whooping and hollering and screaming savagely, they at last caught their
quarry, and what soon followed was a scene more gruesome than any Sarah had
seen in a lifetime.

She
watched as the strange little children were thrown to the pavement, their candy
bags bursting open as the other children ripped and pulled and kicked them
mercilessly like so many vultures squabbling over a bloated carcass. Their
screams were like tortured metal, nails on blackboards in the still night as
the little savages rendered them to bits. In their multi-colored nakedness the
three appeared almost clownish, she thought.

Chunks
of candy scattered across lawns and into the street as they were dismembered,
torn limb from limb like a troop of burst piñatas. Their sugary guts, pink and
blue and raspberry red, glistened in the light of the waning moon. Yards of black
and red licorice rope were ceremoniously unspooled from split torsos, gumdrop
and lollipop eyes plucked and sucked from sugar skulls and popped between sweet
stained teeth.

It was
a sickeningly sweet slaughter right outside her house. And yet, she couldn’t
bring herself to remove her eyes from the spectacle below. The confectionary
cannibalism brought on by masked terrors gripped her attention fully.

The
mouths of the attackers stained nearly black by the colored sugars they chewed,
greens and reds and yellows so bright, frothed into a vicious spittle that
slipped from their mask hidden mouths and dribbled over chins. A small girl,
hands and gown a hopeless, hideous mess of tacky sugar juice, looked up, up
into the high window where Sarah watched aghast, and smiled. Sarah couldn’t see
the smile under the mask of a green witch, but she knew the wicked thing was
there all the same.

Sarah
curled into a frozen ball under the blankets to await morning as a host of
terrible images danced through her head. She couldn’t even be sure that what
she had witnessed was real. How could it be? Children made from candy was a
preposterous idea. Pure fantasy. She must be more exhausted than she realized.

She
slogged out the front door for the paper the following morning, the previous
night’s terrors still reeling in her head. Upon the sidewalk and street the
only remaining evidence to last night’s slaughter were small syrupy puddles
that dogs and ants licked happily at. A few colorful clumps of cotton candy
drifted lazily across the lawn waiting to dissolve peacefully in the fresh dew.

A
sudden splash of water broke her away from morbid memories of the night past,
washing away a spot of sugary death from the driveway. “Can you believe the
mess those damned cretins left behind?” George said, aiming the garden hose at
yet another spot and dissolving it to the heavens. “Every Halloween. It gets
bothersome, really.” The dissolved sugar sluiced from the driveway in a torrent
of cold water and ran into the gutter drain, ants and all, as she watched.

“Probably
those pesky Collins kids, always running about like they own the neighborhood,”
he continued. “No, I just don’t understand these kids nowadays. Not one bit,
Sarah.”

No, she
thought, he probably didn’t understand them. But she did. Oh, she understood
them perfectly. And right now she needed some sweet, sweet candy.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

I was fortunate enough to once again be included in this great series of anthologies edited by Troy Blackford. 'Robbed of Sleep, Volume 3' is, in my opinion, the best so far, and I'm not just saying that because I have a story within its pages. This volume is packed with outstanding tales of horror and sci-fi and speculative fiction that will make it impossible for you to put this book down. My contribution, entitled 'Dollface', is perhaps the most disturbing, messed-up thing I have ever written for publication. I hope you all pick up this outstanding volume. You won't be disappointed. The Kindle edition can be found here. Paperback edition can be found here.

Saturday, May 2, 2015

I suppose I could vaguely consider myself a writer. I write. People read what I write. I've even sold stories to publications and earned enough to super-size my McDonalds order with that pay. I have no illusions of writing full-time for a living. Or of even signing a book deal with a big publisher. I'm happy writing short stories about disturbing and sad and terrible things. It's not easy. If it were I doubt I would enjoy it.I don't often ponder these things, though it does interest me. Writers interest me. It's not the glamorous lives they lead, locked for months on end behind closed doors tapping away at keys, gas station burrito and Oreo stains on their shirt their only constant companion. No social life until the never-ending deadlines are met. Spouses with the white jacket men on ready speed dial. No, for me it's more an interest in their processes. How they took an idea and made it blossom into a world.Okay, enough with that. What even brought it up was a post by another writer, Paolo Bacigalupi, who if you haven't read you need to. Right now! Start with 'The Windup Girl'. Here's the wonderful thing he had to say that inspired me to say my own thing:One thing stands out to me: I like writers. I like those people who
struggle to say something with fiction. Those people who struggle to
shape an idea, or a character or a
scene, struggle to get a voice and hold on to it through the whole of a
long project. I like those people who do not gaggle about with
theoretical abstractions of what a book should be, or could be, or might
be, but instead dare to face the thing that they actually can create,
and that will never come close to the platonic ideal of whatever some
outsider will say is good. I like the people who dare the messy
complexity of hundreds of thousands of words, tangled, all connected,
all influenced by one another, lace webworks, painstakingly and messily
constructed. Those webs of story might shake in the wind, and might come
apart when people prod them, might barely manage to cling to a shape,
but I love them for their bravery. -Paolo Bacigalupi

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Once again, I've neglected my blog. So, I thought, why not throw up a not very well written short horror story from the old slush pile. That pile, by the way is massive, consisting of several reams in print. But, this particular one, 'A Bed of Ice', I have a fondness for, even though it needs far more editing work. I wrote this as a kind of joke between a friend and I (Names changed to protect the severely demented, twisted souls), as ourselves as the characters as teenagers and bored one winter break. Ironically, seeing as it's the two of us, I'm not certain as to how these events didn't actually come to unfold in reality, minus the snow, of course. Anyhow, Maybe you'll enjoy this and maybe you won't.

A Bed of Ice

by Guy Medley

Artwork borrowed illegaly

Rob sat slumped in an overstuffed chair in Eric’s dad’s den,
a bag of stale cheese puff crumbs teetering on the edge of the end table
between them, as they both sat staring lifeless at the television half watching
some played-out sitcom drone on in the background. Winter break from the sixth
grade meant little more than long days of boredom and wishes for warmer
weather. Both Rob’s and Eric’s parents worked during the week, leaving the two
at the mercy of their imaginations and their limited kitchen skills.

“This
town sucks, man,” Eric said, his gaze somewhere between the ceiling and
Neptune. “There’s never anything to do around here.”

“Yeah,”
Rob replied, the laugh track of the corny eighties sitcom almost lulling him
into a hypnotic state.

Both
boys sat in the darkness of the den and imagined their lives away from small
town living, where big dreams would come true every day. Where they could be
free to do anything they wanted and be anyone they chose to be.

Rob’s meditative
trance was broken as the television clicked off. He looked over at Eric who
held the remote in his hand.

“Where?”
Rob asked, sitting up straight as his attention came back to focus.

“It’s
out in the woods behind our houses. I found it the other day. It was all blue
and frozen solid. Its eyes were open, staring straight up, the color of frozen
mud.”

Rob
couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was like the plot to a horror movie.
“And you didn’t tell anyone?” he asked.

“No,”
Eric said. “I wanted to show you first. Before the cops and CSI and everyone
came and took it away.”

“Why
didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

“I was
afraid you might not be ready to see a dead guy yet. Besides, I was scared
whoever killed him might be watching the area or might come back for the body.”

“He was
killed?” Rob almost yelled, jumping to his feet. “Awesome! I’ve never seen a
real-life dead body before. Except for my grandpa, but he was just lying
asleep-like in bed, not murdered or anything. Is it all chopped-up and gross?
Does it smell real bad?”

“No,”
Eric said. “He’s just dead. That’s all.”

Rob
walked circles in the dark room. “Man, I wonder who killed him, and why?”

“It
doesn’t matter,” Eric said. “Some people are just born to be killed while
others are born to do the killing. That’s just the way it is.”

Eric
threw on his favorite yellow jacket; its sleeves frayed with use, and motioned
for Rob to follow. The boys walked through the rusty gate in the fence that
separated the back yard from the woods beyond. A chorus of neighborhood dogs
barked in their wake as they crunched over the brittle snow toward the skeletal
trees.

Eric
admired the dazzling glitter of the sunlight playing off of the snow crystals.
They were as brilliant and flashy as any Las Vegas hotel marquee lighting up
the strip, but clean; pure. A suitable place to rest eternally, unlike any
place Vegas could offer.

He
stopped under a large old oak, Rob almost running into him. “This is it. This
is where he’s at,” he said, pointing to the snow covered ground. “It snowed
yesterday, so he’s buried now. We’ll have to dig him up.”

The
boys got down on their hands and knees and began digging through the snow,
scooping up handfuls at a furious rate, excited about the prospects of digging
up a real-life murder victim. The hole grew deeper and deeper, but with no sign
of the body.

“Shouldn’t
we have seen something by now? We’ve dug down pretty deep already,” Rob said,
wiping sweat from his brow with a slush covered glove.

“We’re
close,” Eric said. “Just a bit more is all.”

Before
long the pit was too deep to work from the top, so both boys crawled inside and
worked from the bottom, digging even deeper. Finally Rob stood and stretched,
looking at their work thus far.

“I need
a break for a second.”

“That’s
fine,” Eric said. “We’re there.”

As Rob
took a second look into the pit they stood chest deep within to see what he had
missed, Eric grabbed ahold of his hair from behind and pulled Rob’s head back
as the flash of a blade appeared in his other hand and swept smoothly across
his exposed throat in a graceful clean motion.

Eric
had gone out to the garage and used his dad’s good stone sharpener on the blade
until it was so sharp it had repeatedly threatened to cut through its own leather
sheath. Now he took that precision blade and cut until he felt the edge of the
steel grind musically against bone. Rob made a series of sickly gurgling noises
as his thickening essence filled his throat and lungs, as it flowed from his
gaping neck like a steaming geyser. Thick drops of blood fanned out
fantastically upon the snow like a million rubies glittering atop sugar. So
delightful. So delicious looking, he thought with wonder.

Eric
lowered Rob gently into the hole they had dug and watched as his remaining life
ate crimson wormholes into the snow. When the flow at last came to a halt, he
tucked his friend in and under the snow; into his bed of ice, gently folding the
covering over his cold body like jeweled sheets of diamond. A fitting shroud of
ice for him to rest beneath.

He
happily walked back home, the setting sun coloring the snow pink and lavender,
and whatever wonderful colors Rob was seeing from beneath.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

As a new writer (so far as publishing is concerned), the one thing I've learned is that the profession is filled with friendly, helpful, supportive people. Most of the time. But, like any group of people, there are a few bad seeds that sprout up from time to time and spread their vile spores. Nobody knows why. Maybe my friend Mercedes has them pegged and it's simply because they're 'whakadouches'.As a writer of mainly horror, I can't help but be thankful to women writers of horror. They were key in bringing forth the modern era of horror with authors such as Ann Radcliffe in the 1700's, to Mary Shelley in the 1800's and on into more modern times with Shirley Jackson. If not for these women, authors such as Stephen King and Dean Koontz, and many others probably would not have had a horror platform to stand upon.Now, the blog post that inspired me to write this, by the awesome author and lovely woman of darkness, Mercedes M. Yardley (hopefully with permission):

Well. I’m mad.
I’m not trying to be inciting or hysterical. But I am angry.
A “fellow” horror writer lambasted a dear friend and amazing woman
for doing book signings while in costume and…I’m not quite sure what
else. Being a woman? He said women were especially bad at trying to grab
attention (“claiming” we’re horror writers when we aren’t) and most of
us are hags anyway.
That’s right. Most of us are hags.
I’m sorry, but how did appearance even manage to worm its way into
this conversation? This author has one book out and a second releasing
soon. Yet he has the authority to decide who is really a horror writer
and who isn’t? And bringing physical appearance into it is exceptionally
personal. He doesn’t like the way most of us look? Next time I’ll be
careful to wear a helmet while signing so I don’t offend readers. I
thought writing was about the *writing*
but apparently I was wrong! Silly woman, “claiming” to write horror!
Thank goodness this random dude was there to set the #LadyHags in our
place.

The Helmet of Haggishness will hide my face nicely at signings. Oh, and look! An Anti-Hag Cooties visor, as well!

Hags? All right. I’ll hop on that broomstick and ride it.
I’m not naming names for a few reasons. The first reason is grace.
Perhaps the ranting author had a really bad day. Perhaps he wrote
something without thinking and didn’t realize how hurtful and
misogynistic he was being. Perhaps these aren’t really his true
thoughts. I wouldn’t want to cause this individual pain, even though he
so clearly caused it in others.
The other reason that I don’t want to share his name is because he doesn’t deserve the attention.
The third is because the woman he attacked (before his vitriol
spilled over to the rest of womankind) has the right to share his
identity, not me. If you’d like to talk to her about it, feel free.
Besides being a fun, compassionate writer and person, she is also a
mother dealing with a sick child. Her son has cancer. That’s right:
cancer. And some random whackadouche decided that she wasn’t up to his
standards.
You see why I’m so furious right now. My hands are shaking.
This isn’t a one-time thing. It’s a constant thing. February is Women
in Horror month precisely because of things like this. Women are often
shunted to the back or otherwise demeaned in this genre. Definitely not
by everybody. If we’re hags, then we have a strong troop of hag
supporters. Team #LadyHags. There are men inside this genre and out who
link arms and stand with us. Which is how it’s supposed to be, by the
way. Who has time for pettiness and division, really? Don’t you have
lives you’re trying to lead? Children you’re trying to feed and keep
alive? Don’t you have loved ones worth fighting for? Why spend your time
attacking women that are of no concern to you?
You don’t have the right.
We are here. We are beautiful. We are strong. We’re going to write
what we want and how we want. If we want to do readings in libraries, good. If we want to do booksignings on a lawn, more power to us.
Our path to success doesn’t concern you. It doesn’t impede yours. You
don’t like what we write, where we hold signings, or what we’re wearing?
Nobody asked you. And more importantly?
You don’t get to tell us what to do.
If you’re going to judge us as writers, then judge us on merit. Like
us for who we are or what we bring to the table. But don’t turn us away
because of something stupid like, oh, having female anatomy. Besides, women are wired for horror. Believe it.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

It's been a while since I posted something here, so, I thought to satisfy your disturbing need for something vile and evil, I'd post a super short story that doesn't seem to want to find a home anywhere else. This piece came about, as so many of my stories do, through a real-life event. Well, not so much an event, at least for myself, so much as a simple discovery. I was driving home from the post office one afternoon when up ahead in the middle of the street sat a cardboard box lying on its side. As I drove past I saw it had written across a side in kids handwriting (or a very sloppy adult. One never can be sure around here) "Free Puppies" in bright pink Sharpie. It was open on the side I passed and I could see no puppies, free or otherwise. The story just popped into my twisted mind almost immediately. It's just a weird, kind of funny, twisted story.

Free Puppies

by Guy Medley

artwork: stolen from Google

Sarah pulled the corner onto Meadow Lane, steering her car
toward home. She was exhausted from a week of the same weekly bullshit at the
office and was more than ready to get some relaxation in during the weekend.
But, she knew that wasn’t likely to happen. The kids would be demanding of her
every second, while their father would demand they remain out of his way as he
wrote. He was home every day, writing, or so he claimed. But she knew his
routine: get up and write for two or three hours, then spend the rest of the
day eating Cheetos and watching Sports Center, or as he called it, partaking in
a “creative interlude.” The bastard, she thought angrily. He writes one best
seller and now he thinks he’s Stephen fucking King.

As she
neared her driveway she saw something lying in the middle of the street. As she
got closer she saw it was the cardboard box the neighbor kids had been using to
house the litter of puppies that their dog had delivered a few weeks earlier.
The hand scrawled “Free Puppies” in neon pink marker, was plainly visible,
written across one side, which now faced upward, as the empty box was now lying
on its side. That’s odd, she thought as she swerved into her driveway.

Then
she saw the florid streak of blood that trailed from the dark maw of the
upended box. It seemed to stretch from the box in the street up and over the
curb and onto the sidewalk. She followed it with her eyes as she parked. It
continued across the sidewalk and up the walkway to the front porch, and
beyond. “What the hell?” she stammered. Had something happened to the puppies,
or to the neighbor kids? As the horrid thought of kids being mowed down in the
street with puppies blossomed in her mind, she rushed from the car toward her
house, following the dark grisly trail to the door.

She
burst in through her front door, fear and worry growing steadily with each step,
as the trail leading her way now contained bits of fur and chunks of god knew
what. She threw her briefcase down on the foyer floor and rounded the corner
into the living room. Both of her children were sitting on the floor in the
middle of the room, a mound of bloodied fur surrounding them both. They were
covered head to toe in blood and vile guts; fur sticking to them at odd angles
and in clumps as if they themselves were sprouting an animal’s coat.

Neither
child looked toward their mother as they continued, what to her horror, she
realized was play. They swung the ragged remains of puppies around by their
legs and tails, flipping them into the air as they giggled and laughed. Blood
covered the floor in a thickening pool. It congealed on the sofa and curtains
and lamps in a splatter pattern Pollock would have been proud of. “What the
hell is going on here?” she asked, her eyes wide with disgust. “Where is your
father?”

The
children paid her no attention, continuing their macabre game, wringing the
last of the blood from their once living toys. Sarah marched over to her
youngest child and spun her around to face her. “Why are you doing this,
Becky?” The girl looked up into her mother’s eyes with eyes that were as black
and soulless as a skull’s, and smiled wide. Even her teeth were colored pink
with blood. “Jesus, what are you doing?!” she shouted at them both. Donny now
looked at his mother and smiled as well. Sarah’s blood chilled at the sight of
them both.

“Where
the hell is your father?” she asked again, backing away from them, tremors of
fear now gripping her.

In
unison they answered in voices as foreign to her children’s lips as that of the
devil’s himself. “Zirnek demands the blood.” They then went about their play.

“Zirnek?
What’s Zir…?”

“Zirnek
demands the blood,” they both interrupted, once again in perfect, chilling
unison.

“Goddammit,
what is…?”

“Zirnek
demands the blood,” they uttered again, still playing with the bloody corpses.

“Who
the fuck is Zirnek?!” she yelled, tears beginning to stream from her eyes. She
stumbled and caught herself as she staggered backwards toward the hall, away
from the things that were her children when she had left for work this morning.
She had reached the archway to the hallway and foyer when she bumped into something
solid and soft. She spun around on shaky legs to see her husband standing
behind her. His bloodied face lit up with a wide pink smile as he looked down
at his wife.

“Zirnek
demands the blood” he said in a dark raspy voice that was nothing like his own.

Sarah’s
eyes grew to saucers as she saw the large kitchen knives he held in each bloody
fist.